Canne de combat on Cracked article

[/SIZE]This is not just evidence in an assault trial -- I mean yes, it is almost certainly exactly that; that man is clearly being beaten to death on camera and I'm sure that justice has since been served -- but there's more to the photo than that. This is actually a pictorial how-to guide for a martial art called Canne De Combat: The gentle and sophisticated art of beating people with walking sticks. Canne De Combat was developed in early 19th century France, and was most commonly practiced by civilized gentlemen in metropolitan areas, presumably because rural farmers could vent their bloodlust on livestock and wild animals. It was only city-folk that had to save all the anger up, periodically venting their frustration via explosive cane beatings. But Canne de Combat wasn't sheer, purposeless fury. There was quite a bit of technique involved. Here you can see two gentlemen, both versed in Canne de Combat, executing Muay Thai-style knee strikes and Kung Fu side-kicks. [/quote]

I'd be really interested in learning this Canne de Combat. Canne Italiana looks like a lot of fun too. Nowhere local for me to train though, just some Savate places on the East Coast (Aus). I might pick up one of their instructional DVDs one day.

I'd be really interested in learning this Canne de Combat. Canne Italiana looks like a lot of fun too. Nowhere local for me to train though, just some Savate places on the East Coast (Aus). I might pick up one of their instructional DVDs one day.

I tried out Western Fencing earlier this year and it was a lot of fun. But I thought to myself, if only fencing was done with a stick, without the hand guard augmenting the defensive blocks and parries, and without the foot work confines of the strip, and with the opportunity to punch/kick and grapple.

Ha I guess I do already know how to dance that way.

I've been considering the local Hema group though, but that's another subject.

Still want to train in Canne fencing or Lion Drome racing if the opportunity ever arrises.

You're right. The footwork especially was a completely different animal.

Those old woodcutings really don't do any justice to the movments. The panels in the OP and other stuff I've seen prety much crossed right over but that competition footage is off the chain! I think this might be the coolest spectator sport I've ever seen.

If it included strikes and grapling I'd probably become a hermit and dedicate my life to the cause...

Those old woodcutings really don't do any justice to the movments. The panels in the OP and other stuff I've seen prety much crossed right over but that competition footage is off the chain! I think this might be the coolest spectator sport I've ever seen.

If it included strikes and grapling I'd probably become a hermit and dedicate my life to the cause...

As I understand it, canne de combat has a sport variety and a fighting variety, like savate. The stuff in old self defense manuals is usually more straightforward than what's in that video. I've never seen the crouching and spinning in the old manuals.

You might want to check out Craig Gemeiner's (sp?) website savateaustralia.com. Good articles about classical fighting systems. His academy does savate, canne de combat, vigny stickfighting, chausson etc, so they do canne de combat + savate + grappling. Here's a vid where he combines stick + grappling + kicking:

I recomend you check out http://www.youtube.com/user/skylorenz for Canne Italiana, similar to the non sport version of Canne de Combat. It's the other Canne art I really want to train. There probably wouldn't be any Itallian Canne masters teaching in my Hemisphere though.